Battling Demons Within

I’ve always had demons inside of me, but I’ve never paid them any mind. I was used to them playing around in my head. The thing with the demons that live within is that they aren’t really demons at all. They are the voices from the people that contributed to the traumas in your life. Have you ever instantaneously have a natural reaction to something that you aren’t consciously aware that you’re doing it? For example, what is your most natural reaction when someone accuses you of doing something that you didn’t? What about if someone called you some vulgar names? What if someone accidentally bumped into you in a grocery store without saying “Excuse me?” What about when driving and someone cuts you off, or drives twenty miles an hour on the highway with you trailing behind?

A natural reaction could be anger, rage, or shouting obscenities under your breath. Maybe thoughts in your head saying how rude they are, or if something were to happen and you tried to defend yourself? If someone accused you, you will protect yourself and have a righteous attitude, finding reason to prove your innocence. That is a natural response to most people, but there are a select few who choose not to prove their innocence, they would rather allow the accuser to have their ways in that moment and come back to present their side of the story when the other has calmed down. How many people could do that? When someone labels you with profane language, racial slurs, or demeaning words, the natural reaction would probably be to either call them names back, use some form of violence, or hold it inside. When you hold it inside though, you would have to allow the anger out in some way, shape, or form. What is your mechanism? What do you do when you’re angry?

I am guilty of being one of the people that hold it within and use passive aggressiveness to purge my anger. When enough anger brews up inside me, I erupt, that’s when the demons come out to play. They feed all my insecurities, giving all the right reasons to act out or tell me that my thoughts are rational. Those same demons are the ones who make me believe that however I am acting at the time, is justifiable.” I acted nasty towards you because you provoked me.” Does that make it right? Are my thoughts rational? At the heat of the moment you accused me of cheating, yet I was at work the whole time, working hard to pay the bills, picking up overtime. But nothing I could say at that moment will convince you that I’m innocent. People will believe what they want to believe, it’s the demons within your mind pretending to play God, controlling your thoughts, behaviors, and your actions.

So how do we combat the demons? Well, it depends. I am still struggling to fight in this never-ending battle on a daily basis. I try to rationalize my thoughts in a way that is painful to admit. He/She loves me, but why do I accuse him of cheating? What has he done to make me not trust his intentions towards me? I have to re-examine myself, that’s the painful part. Admitting that you are in the wrong, that you are guilty of accusing makes you feel remorseful. Who wants to admit that they have a character defect? That they have demons within feeding them lies to initiate the conflict? You would start to feel that something is wrong with you, you were never this person whom accuses people without evidence, but why now? Why have you become the person that you told yourself that you would never be?

Because you are now vulnerable. That person has some type of effect on you. You are scared, you don’t want to go through anymore trauma, you don’t wan’t to get hurt. You begin to have all these scenarios play out in your head and you want it to become a reality so that the fantasy in your head evolves into a true story. I do that a lot. I push all my loved ones away. I try to find small flaws in their character and start conflict. “WHY didn’t you turn off the light? WHY didn’t you clean up? WHY are you obsessed with social media? WHAT is wrong with you?” This is when the demons begin to dance around the bonfire in my mind and instead of putting it out, they insist on pouring more lighter fluid to ignite the flames even higher. Once enraged, I shut down. I say the harshest words, my actions become psychotic, thrashing around, screaming, throwing tantrums with things flying around. Of course my loved ones get frightened and so they say things they don’t mean, such as “I can’t do this anymore. I cannot take this anymore.” My natural response is “THEN LEAVE! If I frighten you, make you sad, angry, or whatever feeling you feel besides happiness, then LEAVE! I’m not forcing you to stay! You’re stupid for staying with me this long!” Now if that person knows you well enough, he/she will walk out, or take a breather, wait until you calm down, and then proceed to talk to you. But if that person is like everyone else in your life, that person will actually.. Leave, just as you thought they would.

Your demons are not throwing any more lighter fluid into the fire, but they instead are now fanning the flames, making little sparks fly in the wind, creating little fires all around now. They begin telling you even more things that makes you feel that you’re undeserving of love, of happiness. Things like, “You do not deserve him/her. You are useless, worthless, you are an evil human-being. Besides small accomplishments here and there, what have you done to make you think you are deserving of any type of relationships? Those people are too good for you. You are meant to be alone. If you allow those people in your life, they will end up hurting you even more. Why not just break it off now and save you the heartache, later?” Just as everything else, if you they say it so much that it becomes imprinted in your mind, you give in, you start to believe it. You’re exhausted from rationalizing and telling the voices to shut up.

How long could you continue this battle before finally giving up altogether? How do you combat those illogical thoughts in your head? How do you rationalize and convince yourself that the thoughts and feelings are not true? When will these voices stop? When will these demons go away? It’s a constant power struggle, eventually, you get worn down so much that you give into their maliciousness. You tell yourself “Ok, only this one time, and you’ll be quiet for me, right?” Now, your internalized feelings get brought to the surface and swung at whoever is within your vicinity. After all is said and done, you feel tons better, but whoever was in your path of fury, is now injured and hurt from your words, actions, and unintentional thoughts. You blew up. You unwind. You feel like shit now. You apologize profusely, saying that you won’t do it again. The voices calm for a little while, just like they promised.

The demons are satisfied, for now. But then comes tomorrow, a new day, and history repeats itself. The momentum begins to build all over again. You still have not escaped the hell within your mind, still trying your very damn best to ward off the demons again. Like a broken record replaying over and over again, you realize that this is your life. That wherever you may go, whenever you fall in love, whoever you begin to trust, it will all end the same. You are meant to be alone, to victimize and sentence yourself to misery. To live the rest of your life with the only thing that will never leave your side, your demons.